On 1 January 2015, Serbia took over the Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from Switzerland. The first Permanent Council meeting, chaired by the Permanent Representative of Serbia to the OSCE, was held in Vienna on 15 January.

By its decision of 10 February 2012, the OSCE Ministerial Council decided that Serbia would hold the OSCE Chairmanship-in-Office in 2015, in the framework of its joint Chairmanship bid with Switzerland, which would serve as Chair in 2014. This new model of OSCE’s two-year consecutive and coordinated Chairmanship will ensure, for the first time, a follow-up on the leadership and longer-term planning of OSCE activities. Switzerland and Serbia drafted and, on 2 July 2013, presented to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna their  Joint Workplan.



            "Evald von Kleist" Award Ceremony                                                   "Emperor - Otto Prize" Award Ceremony

For Serbia, the adopted decision on its OSCE Chairmanship is, at the same time, a success and a great challenge and responsibility in terms of multilateral diplomacy, as well as an opportunity to affirm itself as a respected member of the international community. Serbian Chairmanship-in-Office will also be an opportunity for the Western Balkans region to improve its visibility.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia, in its Conclusion of 30 April 2013, defined the OSCE Chairmanship as one of its foreign policy priorities and adopted a decision on setting up a Working Group for the coordination of activities of the Serbian OSCE Chairmanship. The Chairmanship is coordinated by this interdepartmental Working Group, while the activities within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are coordinated by the OSCE Department headed by Ambassador Dejan Šahović.


                          The countries First Deputy PM and FM Dacic visited as OSCE Chairman-in-Office

As the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia Ivica Dačić emphasized on 1 January in his video message on the occasion of assuming the position of OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Serbia is aware that it is taking over the OSCE Chairmanship at a very sensitive time.

“The crisis in and around Ukraine dominate the OSCE activities next year and a series of complex tasks will be ahead of us. This crisis has shown that the OSCE is the only international organization able to respond quickly and establish mechanisms in the field, which should contribute to solving the crisis. Therefore, the challenge set before us as CiO will be an opportunity to further use, in a constructive manner, the meaning and the unique capacity of the Organization, where we will be an objective impartial broker”, Dačić said in the message that you can see here.



During its Chairmanship, Serbia will seek to achieve an open and honest dialogue about the problems and challenges facing the OSCE in order to reach consensus on a common framework that would guide the Organization in the future. This task, however, will be very challenging considering the current circumstances.

Information on the OSCE Chairmanship can be found at the following links:

 Serbia’s OSCE Chairmanship news

Permanent Mission to the OSCE website

Follow @Serbia2015OSCE  

SELF-EVALUATION OF THE LEVEL OF IMPLEMENTATION OF OSCE COMMITMENTS IN SERBIA